In this Nov. 21, 1963 black and white photo, U.S. President John F. Kennedy shakes hands with 22 prominent Houstonians after he and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy arrive at Houston International Airport, now the William P. Hobby Airport.

Photo: AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

This Nov. 21, 1963 image is of people lining Travis Street to see Kennedy's motorcade in Houston, juxtaposed against the current scene in Houston.

Photo: (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

More people lining Travis Street to see Kennedy's motorcade in Houston.

Photo: (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

An image of Houston Chronicle employees leaning out the window waiting on Kennedy's same motorcade.

Photo: (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

University of Houston Phi Kappa Theta frat brothers rush to greet their frat alumni brother, Kennedy, at the Rice Hotel Nov. 21, 1963. Kennedy was assassinated the following day.

Photo: AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

Kennedy and the First Lady in the Grand Ballroom of Rice Hotel, against today's parking garage at the Rice Hotel in Houston.

Photo: AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

Spectators lay on the ground in Dealey Plaza as a motorcycle cop drives by immediately after the Kennedy shooting in Dallas.

Photo: AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

The Nov. 22, 1963 photo captures Jackie Kennedy and Secret Service agent Clint Hill climbing onto the back of the limousine after Kennedy was shot.

Photo: AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

Police and detectives guard the front entrance to the Texas School Book Depository building less than an hour after Kennedy's assassination Nov. 22, 1963.

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Six recollections of JFK's assassination

November 22, 2013

When the first rifle shot crackled through the bright afternoon air, the crowd that had gathered to welcome President Kennedy to Dallas didn’t realize what was happening.

But when two more shots rang out — shattering the skull of the nation’s youngest elected leader — the hundreds of shocked spectators knew they had just witnessed one of the worst chapters in US history.

Fifty years after that awful event, those still alive say they remain haunted by their memories of Nov. 22, 1963, when gunman Lee Harvey Oswald brought down the curtain on Kennedy’s s modern-day version of Camelot.

Following are recollections from the vantage points of six people who watched in horror as postwar America lost its innocence.

Marvin Faye ChismPhoto: Mike Fuentes

She hadn’t planned on watching President Kennedy’s motorcade — and wound up with his assassin’s bullets whizzing directly overhead.

Dallas housewife Marvin Faye Chism was heading downtown with her late husband John and their 3-year-old son Rick to buy the boy shoes while John went to work at the Marriott Hotel.

But at the last minute they decided to stop and see President Kennedy pass by.

They were watching from the sidewalk on Elm Street, right outside the Texas Book Depository, when Oswald opened fire from a sixth-floor window.

“I was standing in front of the Book Depository and the shots came over my head,” said Chism, 69.

At first she thought the sound was firecrackers, until she saw what happened to Kennedy.

“He was shot and his head went back. His wife jumped onto the trunk of the car,” Chism said.

After someone said the gunman “was up on the train tracks,” John charged off to try and catch him.

“The police threw him down,” Chism said, and the family was held at the scene for the next 12 hours.

Chism said seeing Kennedy get killed “just took me for a loop.”

“It was the worst day of my life,” she said.

“It was a horrible day I can’t seem to forget….It just won’t go away.”

Spectators lay on the ground in Dealey Plaza as a motorcycle cop drives by immediately after the Kennedy shooting in Dallas.Photo: AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

He’s spent the past five decades wishing he never went to watch President Kennedy ride through Dallas.

Austin Miller, 76, was working near Dealey Plaza as a mail clerk and tariff compiler for the Texas-Louisiana Freight Bureau when he and several co-workers “just decided we’d walk over and see him.”

“We were on top of the overpass” west of the plaza, he said.

“Stood there for a while, talking to the other people there.”

After watching the motorcade wind its way through the streets, Miller said, “I heard three gunshots.”

“We first thought they were firecrackers, but then realized it wasn’t firecrackers after a little bit,” he said.

“We were looking right inside the limo. They were moving around in the car a lot, and the Secret Service men were trying to help him.”

“A few seconds after it happened, they took off. It was all done in a matter of seconds,” he added.

Ever since, Miller has been trying to forget the awful events he witnessed.

“It was just something that was horrible to happen, something you wish you hadn’t been a part of,” he said.

“How do you put into words what it’s like seeing a man being killed right in front of you?”

She promised her son a picture of President Kennedy, but the world got to see it first.

Dallas housewife Mary Ann Moorman’s son, Ricky, then 11, wanted to go with her to watch the motorcade, “but he had school,” she said.

So Moorman — now Mary Ann Krahmer — and her friend Jean Hill picked a spot on the plaza where they thought they could get a good view of Kennedy and his glamorous wife Jackie, because “we wanted to really see what she looked like up close.”

“The crowd up the way began to get louder, so we knew that the president was coming in our direction,” she recalled.

“As the car turned the corner and came down past us, Jean hollered, ‘Mr. President, look this way, we want to take your picture.’ And I put the camera up and snapped the picture when I thought he was looking at me.”

Mary Ann Moorman’s photoPhoto: Mary Ann Moorman/AP

As it turned out, Krahmer snapped the shutter on her Poloroid instant camera a split second after Kennedy was hit by the first of two bullets.

“I thought I saw his hair jump. Well, that was not his hair — it was the back of his head being blown off,” she said.

Moments later, “this guy came up behind me and said, ‘Someone said you just took a picture,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I did, it’s still in the camera.’ I pulled the picture out and he looked at it and said, ‘Could you go with me to the reporters’ office over in the county building?’ He was a reporter for the Times Herald,” she recalled.

Once there, her picture vanished, only to be returned later by the sheriff — after it gone out on the news wires, later to be dubbed the “Moorman photo.”

Last week, Krahmer, 81, put the famed picture up for auction, but it was taken off the block after bidders failed to meet her reserve price.

Bobby HargisPhoto: Reuven Fenton

Few people were closer to President Kennedy’s assassination than the Dallas motorcycle cop who got splattered with his blood and gore.

Bobby Hargis was riding a Harley-Davidson just behind and to the left of the Lincon Continental convertible that carried Kennedy through Dealey Plaza.

The motorcade was moving so slowly, Hargis said, that “I had a hard time holding my Harley up. I never let it fall, but I had to use my kickstand quite a bit.”

“People were so happy and they were crowding into the street,” Hargis said — until the shots that killed Kennedy cracked the air.

“I saw him being struck. Big plume of brains and blood. I rode right through the plume. I didn’t even notice it,” said Hargis, 81.

As chaos erupted, Hargis parked the bike and ran into the Book Depository looking for the shooter.

Later, he recalled, “Another officer said to me, ‘You’ve got something on your lip.’ It was part of (Kennedy’s) brains.”

Hargis said the shooting left him feeling guilty that and his colleagues had failed to protect the president.

“Until then, I was real proud to be a police officer,” he said.

“It seemed like we didn’t have it all together. We could have done better.”

He also can’t forget how quickly things changed when Oswald opened fire.

“One minute (Kennedy’s) so happy. They’re smiling and everybody’s happy. The crowd was happy,” he said.

“And it was all just destroyed.”

The Nov. 22, 1963 photo captures Jackie Kennedy and Secret Service agent Clint Hill climbing onto the back of the limousine after Kennedy was shot.Photo: AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

It wasn’t the story she wanted to share with her classmates.

Mary “Tina” Towner was 13 years old when her parents let her skip school to watch President Kennedy’s motorcade with them.

The family got to Dealey Plaza about an hour early, and secured a shady spot under some trees where Tina planned to film the event with a Towner Varizoom 8-mm. movie camera while her dad took still photos.

“I was excited. It was fun to be there. I was out of school and my dad was letting me take pictures,” she said.

But after recording about 15 seconds of footage as Kennedy’s limo passed, the first gunshot sounded.

“I looked up quickly; I was glancing to see who was throwing firecrackers out of a window,” she said.

“A split second was all I had time for, because some man who was standing next to me pulled me down to the ground and held onto my arm until he felt it was safe to get up.”

As sirens wailed and the crowd scattered, Tina and her mom stood by as her father ran off to snap some more pictures.

When he returned, Towner — now Tina Pender — and her parents walked back to the family car in stunned silence, then listened to the news on the radio as they rode home.

“The hardest part emotionally was going back to school and people started asking me questions about where I’d been, because some of them knew I’d gone to see the President in his motorcade,” said Pender, now 63.

“And when I told them, and the teacher was listening, they were dumbfounded. They didn’t know what to say. The teacher was very upset.”

Pierce AllmanPhoto: Mike Fuentes

He had a newsman’s knack for knowing where to be.

Pierce Allman was working as the program manager at the WFAA TV station in Dallas when President Kennedy came to town.

While he wasn’t assigned to cover the event, Allman recalled that “I thought at the last minute, I think I’ll stroll over and see this.”

“There was a great air of anticipation, a lot of excitement,” said Allman, 79,

“I was a Republican, but I really liked the guy. I really admired him. I thought he was a harbinger of things to come, a new breed of politician.”

Allman and a colleague walked the four blocks from the station to Dealey Plaza, stopping “across from the front door to the Book Depository.”

As the motorcade approached, Allman was struck that the handsome president and his gorgeous young wife “just looked like a first couple ought to look.”

“I was so captivated I hollered out something like, ‘Hey, welcome to Dallas, Mr. President!’” he said.

“And then they turned a corner and there was that first shot. I’ll never forget that sound.”

Allman watched in horror as Kenney was hit, first leaning to the left, then snapping forward and leaning to the left again as Jackie started screaming.

“I thought, I’ve got to get to a phone. We didn’t have any portable equipment,” he said.

“I ran down the street a little bit, and right across the street a couple with two little kids were flat on the ground.”

“I said, ‘Are you OK?’ The guy rolled over and said, ‘Yeah, but they got the President. They blew the side of his head in.’”

Allman said he then went into the Book Depository and called his station, spending the next 45 minutes detailing the historic event he had just witnessed.